Aldon Joins Microsoft’s Midrange Alliance Program

Aldon has joined the growing ranks of OS/400 ISVs aligned with Microsoft‘s Midrange Alliance Program (MAP), the software company announced last week.

Aldon, which is based in Emeryville, California, says joining the MAP will further the company’s goal of helping customers bridge the gap between their IBM iSeries and Microsoft Windows applications.

“Joining the MAP solidifies Aldon’s strategy to help our customers get more from their existing investments while providing increased interoperability between various platforms and technologies,” says Matt Scholl, Aldon’s chief operating officer. “We look forward to working with Microsoft on driving many successful platform integration projects for our mutual and exclusive customers around the globe.”

Microsoft created the MAP two years ago with the stated objective of helping users of the iSeries server modernize their legacy environments in several ways, including extending OS/400 applications to Windows, integrating OS/400 and Windows applications, and ultimately migrating workloads to Windows from OS/400.

The MAP also served as a platform for Microsoft to make its case that IBM was “devaluing” the iSeries platform with its WebSphere-centric message, a message that resonated strongly with many iSeries users who resisted IBM’s plan to make Java the dominant development language on the platform. IBM eventually backed off from its message of all-WebSphere, all-the-time, and Microsoft’s MAP deserves some credit for the change.

Microsoft’s MAP manager, Scott Rosenbloom, welcomed Aldon into the fold. “As more and more organizations implement mixed platform solutions, Aldon will help to extend and integrate their midrange investments to Windows using the .NET Framework,” he says.

Aldon joins many other providers of OS/400 development tools, including early members ASNA, LANSA, and look software, all of whom support Microsoft’s development tools. Aldon is believed to be the first provider of change management software to join the group.